Sergenian’s Carpet company here in Madison has been running a rug design competition with SoHE students for the last four years. Students in Marianne Fairbanks’ Weaving class and Jenny Angus’ Manual and Computer Generated Design class participated in the project. As part of the competition, the students visited Sergenian’s to learn about the techniques and parameters of the hand-woven rug design.

This year’s theme was to use inspiration from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection to create a contemporary rug design. The designs from the seven finalists were on display in the Fall 2018 TFD Showcase this past week. The winners, listed below, brought home a total of $2000. Their designs will be hand woven in Nepal and we should see the samples at the Fashion Show in April.

Because all of the competition entries drew inspiration from the HLATC, the exhibition boards were on display there and fabric samples of the rug designs were made to compare with the original piece.

First Place: Kelsey Knutsen, post-baccalaureate student

Second Place: Zhinuo Zhou, TFD Junior

Third Place: Xin Yi Hor, TFD Senior

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